The Orange River may have been named after William, Prince of Orange, in 1779, but anyone could be forgiven for thinking it was for the folded ochre mountain ranges or the red-tinged water at sunset or the rising moon glowing gold with desert dust. Even the flesh of the 6ft mud-dwelling barbel fish turns an impossible tangerine hue as they are hung to dry.

Orange is also the colour of harmony and this border river between South Africa and Namibia is the perfect place to feed the soul and row with the flow. The guides on the Felix Unite four-day canoe adventure appeared already on the path to enlightenment - after all it is historically found in the flow of a river - and their calm confidence and soothing canoe-side manner seemed an appealing and desirable state of mind to any city dweller.

An unlikely bunch we were in our two-man Canadian Mohawk canoes. We aged from a mature 12 to a youthful 75 - half from South Africa and the rest a scattering of European tourists. South Africans have long visited this river for its beauty and solitude and I felt privileged to have been let into the secret.

The canoe launch site is seven hours' drive north of Cape Town near the border crossing at Vioolsdrif where the river forces the two countries apart. The idyllic Provenance camp site is situated high on an irrigated grassy river bank on the Namibian side. From it are views of barren, steep, flaking cliffs dropping into tall thick reeds in which hide electric blue malachite kingfishers and golden weaver birds.

From this stunning vantage point I watched an immensely tall Goliath heron cruise like a silent satellite then stand as still as a statue until its arrow-like beak speared a passing fish. The distinctive echoing cry of the Fish eagle rang through the rocky heights in a siren of freedom. With a raptor's arrogance it swooped down and stole the silvery fish right out of the heron's mouth. In its haste, the eagle dropped the meal and a peculiar Laurel and Hardy chase ensued with the spindly-legged heron running madly to recapture its dinner, while the disgruntled Fish eagle flapped wildly.

Gliding silently with the current, you can almost get close enough in your boat to touch the glistening wet darters, also named snake birds for their long s-bend necks. They sit mid-stream on rocks and spread their oil-less wings to dry like a vampire's cloak. Also seen perched on rocks are canoeists whose boat has become stranded on semi-submerged boulders in the shallows - like Noah's Ark after the flood. The current sways the marooned boat right and left or just jams it further between the rocks like a cork in a bottle. The only solution is to poke one foot out and push frantically whilst trying to keep some element of balance in the wobbling craft.

Fail this and you fall in while the boat floats effortlessly off. We were all destined to get wet anyway from the odd water fight and during the first day's "Nappy Run." In a most undignified but hilarious manner, we put the life jackets on nappy style through the legs, and threw ourselves into the bubbling water of Hammerkop Rapid to let the current whisk us to the bottom. It was such fun that everybody did an infantile walk back up the river for another go.

Unlike most great African rivers, there is nothing lurking in these waters that is likely to harm you unless you believe the century old legend of the Great Snake, as thick as a barrel, who eats goats, calves and children. During the evening you will certainly hear loud sploshing sounds to make you wonder, but this is just a huge yet harmless barbel of the cat fish family; not a gastronome's choice. There are very few (non malarial) mosquitoes and no burrowing bilharzia snails and we even drank the water with no adverse effect.

River food as supplied by our guides was nothing short of miraculous. For four days they managed to produce smoked mussel hors d'oeuvres, crunchy cauliflower salads, bacon and egg brunch and a last night speciality, cooked in the coals, of tender roast leg of lamb, sweet honey and raisin butternut, baked potatoes and succulent stuffed cabbage. "It only tastes this good because you've been paddling all day," said lead guide Dale. He was too modest, but a zillion twinkling stars over a flaming fire on a remote bank of the Orange River certainly helped set the scene for feasting, brandy, stories and song.

In the most complete night sky imaginable Orion's belt gave away his position to the Europeans while Africans see instead three zebras whom Aldeberan (the unluckiest hunter in the sky) failed to shoot for supper. He could not go home empty-handed but dared not collect his spent arrows for fear of the lurking Lion (the star we know as Betelgeuse). Aldeberan sulked and shivered while his wives laughed derisively at him. Southern African legend creates the sweeping brush stroke of the Milky Way as from grey ash and hot coals thrown into the air by an angry daughter who was forbidden by her mother to roast her roots in the fire. The Southern Cross, seen each night guiding the way south, are four giraffes whose heads are always visible wherever they are.

The daylight vista is no less breathtaking, with almost every geological process having played a role in shaping the landscape. An assortment of sedimentary mud, volcanic lava, granite, limestone and metamorphic rock form a unique view around every corner. Swirling "snail rock", also known as the "swiss roll", started off as horizontal sedimentary strata but curled under intensive pressure to form an almost complete circle. The Witch's Hat, made of pink metamorphic rock, rises to a sharp peak and stands quite alone like a sentinel forcing the river to change course. Fossils of the giant hyrax-an unfeasibly large guinea pig-and a primitive four-tusked elephant, have been found 40 kilometres from the river mouth. They date back 17 million years.

Diamonds have dominated man's interest in this river. Prospectors have long been trying their luck along the river bank for these precious rocks. They were formed 17 million years ago in river terraces that lay 60 metres above the present level. It is at the Orange River mouth, where it meets the great Atlantic Ocean, that great swathes of diamond rich strata are found and very jealously guarded by the monopoly, Consolidated Diamond Mines. Nevertheless, scrabbling through a reject pile of carefully washed stones at the old yet still used Rudy's Diamond Mine, the canoe party searched for that one glinting pebble that got away.

What we found during another sortie from our boats were not diamonds, but pale turquoise-tinged fluorspar. These came from a pure quartz vein bleaching a white streak through the mountain. Fluorspar is the ore of the mineral fluorite, used as flux in the iron, steel and alloy industries, in the production of hydrochloric acid and the manufacture of enamels and coloured and opaque glass. Our use was to throw the rocks into the night fire and stare like star-struck children as they glowed a brilliant green and purple, before exploding into a frenzy of spitting fireworks.

Scattered along the 78 km stretch of river that we covered over three and a half days were verdant farms, irrigating their crops straight from the river. The Aussenkehr estate, on the Namibian bank, is said to be the largest fruit farm in the southern hemisphere, covering 100,000 hectares. We seemed to paddle past it for days. Table grapes are grown exclusively, being picked and flown from their own airstrip straight to the supermarkets of Europe.

In contrast, directly opposite this farm on the South African bank, is the starkly barren Richtersveld National Park. This rugged mountain desert is two billion years old and rich in endemic succulent plants. One such is the Halfmens (half a man - Pachypodium namaquanum) standing phallicly tall and leaning always towards the north. There is of course a legend to explain this. The original inhabitants of this barren land were chased south across the river and as they stood to look back into their homeland the gods took pity and rooted them to the spot so they could always look at the land from which they came.

After several days of messing around on the water - swimming when it got too hot and holding on for dear life when it got too rapid - the whole group relaxed to a point where, whatever life we had before could not easily be remembered. Even the recent Sjambok Rapid (Afrikaans word for a particularly nasty whip) was a distant waterlogged memory where some made it through and some were punished with no dire effects.

We began to feel a little like the original halfmens who did not want to leave their life giving river. The Orange River had us mesmorised and letting it go was a terrible wrench. I know for sure that if I am ever going to find Nirvana, it will surely be on the banks of the beautiful Orange River.

Carrie Hampton is a Cape Town-based freelance travel writer.

Published in Travel Africa Edition Eight: Summer 1999 Text is subject to Worldwide Copyright (c)